Crooked X
Crooked X
Capitol Records
9/10
At fourteen years old, I hadn’t been to a concert, I thought White Zombie was the epitome of badass, and I had never seen a live tit, let alone touched one. At fourteen years of age, Crooked X has toured with KISS, Ted Nugent and, one can safely assume, seen more tits in a night than I have in my 27 years. With a voice that sounds like it could scare Nick Nolte’s beard off, young Forrest has apparently made puberty his bitch. And then you have this Jesse dude’s guitars that sound like he must have taken ten years of lessons from Mick Jones, Angus Young and Pete Townshend (who probably shouldn’t be around the youthful lads). Josh’s bass sounds make me wonder if he stole Gene Simmon’s bass while on tour. Boomer (I’ll give you three guesses what instrument he plays, but I bet you’ll only need one) deftly translates his spazzy ADD-ness into beats that would make any Neil Peart fan get a stiffy.
While the influence of their dad’s classic rock LP collection doesn’t even attempt to hide itself, Crooked X is no copycat. They might be complete rock badasses at fourteen(!) years old, but I will be damned if I can’t give them a wedgie. If you are tired of Nickleback clones hogging up your airwaves, grab a hold of the new Crooked X. If you still like watered down testoster-rock, go on with whatever Transporter soundtrack you are rocking and don’t talk to me. I have to go feel bad about what I’ve done with my life.
-Jonathan Yost